In the jump guide, you'll find the descriptions for all of the jumps commonly used in competition, as well as some that are not as well known. For each of the major jumps, I have a picture of the take-off. I aquired these off of several TV broadcasts featuring Russian skater Alexei Yagudin. Afterall, who better than the 3-time world champion and text book jumping Russian to illustrate what I'm talking about? These pictures are a bit fuzzy, and that's half because of my reception and half because things are fuzzy in a paused video tape picture. But you should be able to see the pictures well enough to be able to understand the take-offs. There is also a bit of technical jargon I'm going to use, to help you understand the take-offs. In the three-letter take-off notation, the first letter is either L (standing for left foot) or R (standing for right foot), the second letter is either F (skating forward) or B (skating backward), and the third letter is either O (outside edge of skate blade) or I (inside edge of skate blade). So the acronym RBO stands for "Right Back Outside edge," meaning that the skater takes off from the outside edge of the right skate blade while skating backwards. Confused? Just read on, and I think you'll get the hang of it....

Please note that, in the name of simplicity, I list the take off foot and edge as would be the case for most skaters, who turn counter clockwise (CCW) in the air. I apologize to fans of Rudy Galindo, Todd Eldridge, Denise Biellman, Rosalyn Sumners, Sarah Hughes, and all the other CW skaters for doing this, but it makes all of the terminology a lot easier to handle for beginners. If you want to know what the take-off is for these CW skaters, just reverse the foot I have listed in the notation.

When I say an "Edge" jump, I mean a jump that takes off without a toe pick assist (the toe pick is the "teeth" on the front of the skate blade). Toe jumps are generally easier than edge jumps because of the toe pick assist. The three edge jumps are the Axel, the loop, and the Salchow.

Axel (LFO to RBO) This is universally considered to be the hardest jump. The reason lies in the take-off. For one thing, as you can see in the pictures, the skater launches into the Axel while going forward, rather than backward like all the other jumps. Since the skater always lands skating backward (unless they mess up), this means that the Axel has an extra half rotation; a double Axel is really 2.5 rotations, a triple 3.5, etc. In the top left picture, you can see Yagudin beginning to launch the rotation in his take-off for the triple Axel. In the bottom left picture, he is further along in the swing of the free leg, which assists rotation. On the right, you can clearly see the takeoff position. Only Canada's Kurt Browning has landed a quadruple Axel (4.5 rotations). The other reason for the Axel's difficulty is the 'always treacherous' (as Dick Button would say) forward outside edge. The skater must step nearly 180° around into the Axel, and they have little control over this edge. The men are now doing triple Axels regularly, often in combination, but the ladies only regularly do the double Axel. It was the double Axel that Michelle Kwan fell on in her short program at the '99 World Championships. That fall may have cost her the title that year.

Loop (RBO to RBO) The loop is also a difficult jump. Dick Button often cautions that the skater must be positioned perfectly to be able to take off and land this jump smoothly. We've seen a lot of skaters crash on the triple loop. The loop is pretty easy to recognise, if you know what to look for. As the pictures illustrate, the skater will cross his or her left leg over the right leg just before the jump. I'm always somewhat amazed when I see this jump—I don't understand how they can get into the air! Although most skaters enter the loop after gliding backwards, some, such as Irina Slutskaya, opt for a more difficult entry, doing a 3-turn or two on the ice on the take-off foot before launching into the jump.

Because all jumps land on RBO, and the loop takes off from RBO, it is sometimes being used now as the second half of a two-jump combination. I'll discuss the combination aspect of the jumps later after the jump overview.

Salchow (LBI to RBO) The Salchow is considered to be the second easiest jump, next to the toe loop. The technique varies from skater to skater. With some, like Surya Bonaly or Tara Lipinski, it is pretty obvious, but others such as Timothy Goebel have a more ambiguous take-off. For the "obvious" skaters, the Salchow can be recognised by two criteria. First of all, there is often a "leg scoop" of the free leg (right leg) just before take-off. Secondly, the skater often does a 3-turn before take-off—but be careful with this one, because the toe loop and the flip, described below, often have 3-turns before them as well. But those two are toe jumps, while the Salchow is an edge jump. If you see the toe pick jab into the ice during take-off, it is not a Salchow. Alexei Yagudin (see pictures) has a less obvious take-off than some. On the left, you can see that the left leg is the skating leg, and the right leg is in the middle of the swing to assist rotation. On the top right, the leg is starting rotation, and on the bottom right he is almost ready to leave the ice.

Toe jumps, as I said before, have a toe pick assist, which kind of pole-vaults the skater into the air. There are three of them.

Lutz (LBO to RBO) This is considered to be the second hardest jump, next to the Axel. It can also be the second easiest for the layman to identify, as most skaters have a long, gliding setup to it. Oksana Baiul's glide is one of the more obvious ones. However, many of the top skaters nowadays, especially the men, do not have this long, obvious glide into the corner of the rink. Comparing the left picture of the Lutz I have here with the one for the flip below, you see little difference. However, if you look closely, you see that Alexei is leaning more toward the camera on the Lutz. This is because he is skating on an outside edge, which is what makes the Lutz so difficult. This lean of the body is more obvious in the pictures on the right. The top right is the short glide set-up. The bottom right is just before takeoff. He will use the raised free leg to jab the toe pick into the ice and pole vault himself up, but this is especially difficult with the Lutz because he is travelling in an arc to his left side before the jump, and will travel to his right side while in the air and on the landing. For some skaters, look for an extreme tilt of the gliding boot just before takeoff--this makes the outside edge quite obvious. As you'll see in the description of the flip, below, the only difference between the two jumps is the take-off edge, making the distinction between them somewhat ambiguous at times. Many skaters have flubbed the Lutz jump, making it a flip instead....

Flip (LBI to RBO) The only difference between the flip and the Lutz is the edge: with the Lutz, it's a left back outside edge, and with the flip a left back inside edge. Actually, this makes the flip a lot easier, since the skater is leaning the same direction in the take-off as he or she will be once in the air. You can see this if you compare the angle of Alexei's back in the two pictures. As mentioned above, certain skaters tend to glide backwards on a LBO edge, but at the last minute switch (unintentionally) to an inside edge. This is called a Flutz, and is credited as a bad Lutz, instead of a good flip. Most skaters have made this mistake at least once in their careers, but some, like Nicole Bobek, have been known to do it more often than not. A somewhat common fault skaters often make with both the flip and the Lutz is that they raise their free leg too high into the air before jabbing the toe pick down into the ice for the take-off. This is bad technique, because it is difficult to control, and can put a lot of stress on the leg and foot. Sarah Hughes used to do this regularly, though she seems to have corrected it to a large extent recently.

Toe loop (RBO to RBO) Ah, yes...the toe loop. This is by far the easiest jump to perform, though maybe not so easy to identify as some of the others. Often, the skater does a 3-turn on the ice before taking off for the toe loop (though they often do this for the Salchow and the flip too, so be careful). For the toe loop, the skater turns on the ice (the 3-turn) and then steps onto the other foot and toe picks with the foot that they were skating on in the 3-turn. Watch as the skater takes off; as you see here with Yagudin, the skating leg is the right leg this time, with the assist on the left toe pick. This means that the skater toe picks in the same direction as they turn, which is what makes the toe loop so easy. Although we clearly see the toe pick jabbing into the ice in this picture (it's the quad, so he has to really dig in :-), with the toe loop, the toe pick assist is sometimes less obvious than with the Lutz or flip. As the skater launches, you'll often see the left toe hit the ice ever so briefly...yup, that was it, the toe pick. Probably the easiest way to get to recognise any jump is to watch a skater perform it, but sometimes it's hard to know when to watch for what. However, with the toe loop, this is easy to do. Yagudin and Plushenko almost always do the quad toe loop as the first jump in their long programs, and both have excellant technique. Watch and learn :-)

A less common jump related to the toe loop is the toe walley. The only difference is that the skater takes of from a RBI instead of a RBO. The toe walley is supposedly the same difficulty as the toe loop, so you usually won't hear the commentators make the distinction (and it's very difficult to tell one from the other just from watching).

(An aside: in case you were wondering, there is also a jump called the walley, which takes off from a RBI edge like the toe walley, but without the toe pick assist. This means that it is an edge jump, like the Salchow, loop, or Axel. I have not listed it seperately because it is usually performed as only a single jump or series of single jumps in footwork sequences.)

Because it's the easiest, the toe loop jump is the jump most often performed at exhibitions and professional routines. Since, like the loop, it takes off from a RBO, it is also heavily used in the second half of a jump combination. Since the toe loop is much easier than the loop, it is used far more often...to find out more about combinations, read on....

The combinations are generally a set of two jumps without any steps or turns done between them. The first jump can be any of the seven jumps listed above (including the toe walley), but the second jump is restricted to either the loop or the toe loop (with one exception; see "half loop" below). The reason for the restriction is that the landing edge for the first jump must be the same as the take-off edge for the second jump in order for it to be counted as a combination. If the edge changes, or the skater steps onto the other foot before taking off for the second jump, it is counted as a jump series, rather than a combination. The easiest place to look for a jump series is in a pairs long program. They will often do side by side triple toes, then take a few steps and do side by side double toes. The commentators call this a combination in the name of simplicity, but it is really a jump series.

For male ameteur skaters nowadays, the hardest jump combos are typically the quad toe/triple toe, triple Axel/triple toe, or triple flip/triple toe. For women, triple triples are less common, but some women are including them in their long programs now in response to more competition. Michelle Kwan usually doesn't try anything more than a triple toe/triple toe. The most typical combination for the ladies long program is the triple Lutz/double toe loop.

As I said above, the jump most often used for the second half of a combination is the toe loop, simply because it's easier than the loop. Some of the more ambitious skaters, however, are now using the loop as the second half of the combination. This makes the combination much harder than if it were just a toe loop. The way to recognise this is quite easy: speed. With, say, a triple Lutz/triple toe combination, the skater completes the triple Lutz, then reaches back to toe pick for the triple toe. However, if the skater was doing a triple Lutz/triple loop combination, there is no toe pick on the second jump, meaning that after the skater lands the Lutz, he or she goes straight back up into the air for the triple loop. Tara Lipinski performed a triple loop/triple loop combination at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano. Sarah Hughes performed the triple Salchow/triple loop at the 2000 US Nationals. Irina Slutskaya performed both the triple Lutz/triple loop and the triple Salchow/triple loop at the 99/00 Grand Prix Final.

Combinations do not always have to be just two jumps. Evgeny Plushenko's latest combination is quadruple toe/triple toe/double loop.

The half loop (RBO to LBI)

This jump is sometimes just referred to as a "hop" by the commentators, and is only performed in combination. You will not see it as a stand-alone jump, because it is landed on the wrong foot (left instead of right). As discussed above, all other jumps are landed on RBO. The half loop is not a half rotation, as its name implies. It takes off like a normal loop, but after the skater completes a single rotation, he or she lands on the left foot, still skating backwards. "Why do this?" you ask. Well, the only reason that anyone would want to land on the wrong foot is to set up for the Salchow in the second half of a combination. For example, Surya Bonaly sometimes performs a triple toe/half loop/triple Salchow combination. Maria Butyrskaya also performs this combination; she did it in her winning long program at the 1999 World Championships, and recently at the 2000 European Championships and Grand Prix series. Ekaterina Gordeeva sometimes does a four jump combination: single Axel/single loop/half loop/double Salchow.

There are several variations of the split jump, but they all have one thing in common: the split position in the air. If you're really sharp, you might have guessed that from the name :-)

A split jump usually takes off like a flip (skating boot on LBI, toe pick with right boot). In the air, the skater either does a sideways split or a forward split (the latter is the one most men choose to do). The skater either lands skating forward (if he or she has turned halfway around in the air) or skating backward (if he or she has turned completely around in the air). Needless to say, it is harder to do the one with the full turn.

A Falling Leaf is a variant of the split jump. It has the same possibilities as above, but this time the take-off is like a loop, rather than a flip. So, it is an edge jump, taking off from RBO. This makes it difficult, but graceful. Sarah Hughes now regularly includes this jump in her long program.

In pairs figure skating, regular jumps are performed side-by-side (usually triple toes, double flips, or double Axels nowadays). In addition, a required element is the pairs throw jump. This is an assisted jump for the lady. The throw jumps are just variations of the regular jumps, usually the triple Salchow, triple loop, triple toe loop, or double Axel. At the 2000 Grand Prix Final, Sarah Abitbol and Stephan Bernadis attempted to be the first to land a throw triple Axel, but she fell badly on the landing. At both the 1999 and 2000 World Professional Championships, Oksana Kazakova and Artur Dmitriev became the first to attempt a throw quad toe loop in competition (she landed it slightly under-rotated, meaning that it didn't really count). Rumor has is that Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze are working on a throw quad Salchow, though they haven't attempted it in competition yet. The pictures I have here illustrate the basic throw jump. On the left, Kazakova and Dmitriev are setting up the take-off for a throw triple Salchow. On the bottom left and top right, Xue Shen and Hungbo Zhao in the middle of a throw jump. On the bottom right, Kyoko Ina and John Zimmerman also in the middle of a throw jump. Notice the difference in the position of John's free leg as opposed to Hungbo's.

Side-By-Side Jumps Pairs skaters are also required to do side-by-side jumps. These are supposed to be synchronized. A common mistake is for one partner to double or single the jump, while the other does the jump well. It is common to see side-by-side triple toes or double Axels. Less difficult are the side-by-side double flips. Pictured are Shen and Zhao taking off for the side-by-side double Axels.

The first quad attempt was made in 1979. Kurt Browning was the first to hit the quad toe loop in 1988; Kurt was also the first (and so far, only) person to land the quadruple Axel (the hardest quad jump). Ilia Kulik was the first to land a quad (toe loop) in a winning Olympic program (1998, Nagano). Timothy Goebel was the first American to land a quad, as well as the first to land a quad Salchow, the first to land three quads in one program, and the first to land a quad at US Nationals (2000). Michael Weiss attempted the quadruple Lutz at Nagano, but failed. Roman Serov attempted the first quadruple loop (at Trophy Lalique 2000), but popped the attempt.

As mentioned above, the quad throw was attempted by Kazakova and Dimitriev at the 2000 World Pro, but she did not land it cleanly.

The only single lady to attempt the quad has been Surya Bonaly (France). She first tried the quad toe loop in 1990. Since then, she has landed several under-rotated quads—both the toe loop and her favorite jump, the Salchow—in competition. As is stands today, early in the year 2001, no other women have attempted the quad, and no woman has landed one cleanly. It remains to be seen what Surya has up her sleeve for the future.

Don't ask me why the ISU judges outlawed the backflip; it's a crowd favorite, and certainly one of mine. However, once a skater goes professional, they can backflip to their heart's content. The take-off is like the flip: LBI edge and right toe pick. The skater pole-vaults himself into the air and usually lands on two feet. Scott Hamilton made the backflip popular, and still does it on his exhibition tour (I got to see it personally, even up here in Alaska!). Other skaters to perform the backflip include Brian Orser, Michael Weiss, and Phillipe Candelloro (who has helped to repopularize it). Surya Bonaly also performs the backflip; she also happens to be the only individual who can land it on one foot. Her landing edge for the backflip (LBI) is often so steady that she is able to pull off a triple Salchow right after the backflip, without taking a step in between! (This fact really impresses Scott Hamilton).

Well, that's all I have to say about jumps. Be sure to visit my guide to spins, as well as the guide to other moves that don't fit either category. If you have any questions that aren't addressed on this guide, please, email me at sarahb@mosquitonet.com. I may not be able to answer all questions, but I'll do my best to help you.

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